All At Sea
by GrandiloquentHeartlessness
Summary: "Since he got here he's been dreaming of the day when he'll reunite with her, but her here in his home town doesn't feel like that reunion. It's like he's trying to wear two masks at once and he can't figure out what's real." Set during episode 4x06, My Hometown.


**A/N:** This is a one-shot set during the 4th season episode "My Hometown", while Jude is in New Brunswick. It starts at the tail end of the scene where they're at the festival thing singing _Here We Go Again_. The title is from a song by Jamie Cullum.

* * *

"Come on, Little Tommy Q" Jude says, pulling on his hand.

Tommy cringes internally at the nickname. Normally her use of it doesn't bother him much, but here it just triggers that feeling of dissonance again, like he's trying to wear two masks at once and he can't figure out what's real and what's façade. He tries to shake it off, giving her a little smile. "Uh, around here it's Tom Dutois."

Jude smiles wider as she turns around to look at him. "Well whoever you are," she says, wrapping her arms around his neck, "I can't wait to get you home with me." He smiles, and they exchange a few kisses.

She hugs him tighter, burying her face in his neck, and he wants so much to lose himself in this, in the relief that comes with finally being able to hold her again. Because he _has_ missed her. God, how he's missed her, like a phantom ache, a missing piece. It's something he'd never tell her, but she's become his happy place. When his mother is screaming at him and it feels like everything is crashing in, it's no longer the therapist-suggested calming waves or babbling brook he envisions to regain calm, it's her. Jude smiling at him in bed first thing in the morning, all droopy eyelids and soft, sleepy kisses. Jude on stage, burning with joy and intensity. Jude in the studio, eyes closed to concentrate on the sound, laser-focused. The memories are like a beacon in a storm. His love for her centers him, focuses him, makes him remember what's important. Since he got here he's been dreaming of the day when he'll reunite with her.

But her here in his hometown doesn't feel like that reunion. It feels more like an invasion than anything, like two parts of his life he leaves carefully separate are crashing together in ways he can't handle. Since she showed up, he hasn't been able to breathe right, tense with awkwardness and anxiety bordering on fear. It frustrates him that he can't enjoy her company, but there's always tension in the back of his mind. Like today, singing the duet. Performing with Jude is something he loves, and doing it again should have been great. And it was, for parts of it, but seeing Mike and Ryan in the crowd he could just predict the shitstorm of mocking he'll get for it later. They'll pretend it's good-natured ribbing, but they'll all know that underneath is a current of real resentment. It's taken months for it to get to a point where every ten minutes someone isn't bringing up Tommy's money or his big-city musician lifestyle, and Jude being here is going to bring that back down on him tenfold.

This morning, with her standing in his kitchen, he saw her through their eyes. The famous Jude Harrison, young and doe-eyed and wealthy, too good for his poor fishing town, his alcoholic mother, Mike with his black-market electronics and the lingering smell of weed. That would be one thing if it weren't for the fact that this place is part of him too. He may have left it behind a long time ago, but he knows this is still who he is. Deep down he'll always be the violent, angry kid from the poor, angry, broken family. Jude doesn't get that, he knows she doesn't. He's subconsciously trying to prepare himself for the moment she figures it out and it sends her running.

Over Jude's shoulder, Tommy catches sight of Ryan in the distance smirking at him and suppresses a surge of rage. He turns his head and murmurs, "Hey, let's get out of here, okay?" in Jude's ear.

She pulls back. "Do you have to go back home?"

"Nope." He grabs the stuffed animal he won her in one hand, and Jude's hand with the other, starting in the direction of his car.

Jude half-turns around. "Do you want to say goodbye to your–"

"Nope," he cuts her off, pulling on her hand a little.

She smiles. "Well okay then."

When they get to his car, she pulls his face to hers and kisses him with her back against the car. When she grabs his hips, pulling him against her and trying to deepen the kiss, he pulls away and laughs a little. "Whoa, Harrison, slow down."

She frowns. "Did I misinterpret that 'let's get out of here'?"

He leans down again, not quite kissing her, and smiles against her lips. "Not necessarily." He pulls back again and strokes her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "But there's somewhere I want to go. I want to show you something." He pulls away fully, opening the passenger's side door. She pouts and he snorts a laugh. "Patience is a virtue, Harrison."

"It's been like two months," she protests as she gets in the car. "Does that not count as patient?" He rolls his eyes with a smile as he closes the car door, but he frowns as he walks around the car to the driver's side. Because what absolutely _does not_ count as patient is her showing up unannounced on his porch when he specifically told her not to come. He takes a deep breath and tries to put the irritation aside, but the silence between them in the car grows increasingly uncomfortable.

As they drive, he can feel Jude's eyes on him. After a minute she turns off the radio and says quietly, "You're still mad at me."

He glances sideways at her before turning his eyes back to the road and sighing heavily. "I'm trying not to be."

"But you are."

"Yes," he confirms, hoping she'll let it go.

But of course she's Jude, and she never lets anything go, so she protests, "Tommy, I just–"

He cuts her off. "You just showed up here, unannounced, after I told you that I did not want you here. I told you that specifically, more than once, and you ignored me. So yes, Jude, I am angry." He tries to keep his tone even, but the frustration comes out in his voice. He reaches over and turns the radio back on, turning it up a little to make it absolutely clear he doesn't want to keep talking about this. She crosses her arms and turns her head towards the window, and he tries to push away the guilt.

When they arrive and he turns off the car, he says her name quietly. She doesn't turn towards him, so he says, "Look, I don't want to fight with you."

She does turn then, still looking hurt. "I just don't understand why there's this part of you that you keep trying to hide from me."

His jaw clenches and he shuts his eyes briefly, forcing himself to take a deep breath and relax. "Because you don't get it, okay? My home, my family, my childhood? It wasn't like yours."

"You keep saying that, but it still doesn't explain why!" When he just groans in response, she continues, "My home is so far from perfect, Tom. You know that. You were there when my family fell apart."

He shakes his head. "It's not the same thing." He looks away, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

After a long moment Jude quietly asks, "Your mom, she used to hurt you?"

He grips the steering wheel harder, all the air rushing out of his lungs in a whoosh. "Sometimes," he admits, barely a whisper.

"Oh, Tommy…"

He turns to look at her, and the look of pity on her face makes him furious. "See?" he snaps. "That fucking look is _exactly_ what I'm talking about. I don't want your pity, Harrison! And I don't need your judgement!" He gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him, and walks a few yards away, putting his hands up to his head and trying to breathe deeply.

"Tommy!" Jude protests from behind him, having gotten out of the car. He ignores her, and she says, "Dammit, Quincy!"

He turns around as she walks up to him. "No more! I cannot talk about this anymore!"

"Okay!" She holds up her hands in surrender. "But I'm not judging you, Tommy. I don't judge you, I don't pity you, I just love you, okay?" She steps closer. "I know what you think, but I didn't come here to meddle." He scoffs and she protests, "I didn't! Okay, it's true, I _do_ want to know. I want to know everything about you, and I hate that you keep things from me, but that's not why I came here." Her voice softens and she takes another step closer, so she's standing right in front of him. "I came because I _miss you_ , Tommy. I'm going crazy, I miss you so much. So I just… I wanted to see you. I didn't do it to interfere, I didn't do it to upset you, I just needed to see you." She looks up at him with those big eyes, and his heart twists, his expression softening. "I love you," she says softly, and her lower lip trembles slightly.

"I love you too." He sighs, putting a hand on the side of her face and stroking her cheek with his thumb. "And just because I didn't want you to come here, it doesn't mean that I didn't miss you. I miss you every second, girl. You don't even know how much. I just… I wish that you had waited, like I asked you to."

She still looks hurt. "So there's no part of you that's at all happy to see me?"

He smiles a little and leans down to kiss her softly. He leans his forehead against hers and says, "There are many parts of me that are very happy to see you." She pulls back and raises an eyebrow suggestively, and he laughs. "That's not how I meant it, Harrison, get your mind out of the gutter."

"Never." She smiles, and wraps her arms around his neck, kissing him again. She breaks the kiss after a minute and asks, "Hey, are we okay?"

He brushes a lock of hair behind her ear and leans down, their noses brushing as he nods. "We're okay."

She pulls away, looking around. "So what exactly is it that you wanted to show me? Because all I'm seeing is an empty lot."

He smiles and takes her hand. "Come on." He leads her to a large hole in the rusted chain link fence, pulling the fencing aside and gesturing for her to go through.

"Are we trespassing?" she asks with a laugh as he steps through the hole after her.

"Technically yes, probably, but this hole's been there since I was a kid. No one cares. Here, this way." He leads her through a cluster of trees.

"Wow," she exclaims when they get to the other side, "I didn't know we were so close to the ocean."

"You couldn't hear it?" He looks out over the water. "You're never very far from the ocean here."

"I'm not dressed for the beach, Quincy," Jude warns.

"Never heard of skinny dipping, Harrison?" He says it nonchalantly, then laughs when her eyes widen. "God, you're gullible," he says with a grin. She reaches out and shoves his shoulder. "Hey!" he protests, laughing. "Anyway, no, it's rocky cliffs right here, not beaches." He grabs her hand again and they keep walking until Tommy stops in front of an old red-and white lighthouse. "This is what I wanted to show you."

Jude looks up at the tall tower. "Cool. Does it work?"

"Nah, it's been inactive since I was really young. They replaced it with floating beacons a ways out." He gestures to the top of the tower. "Do you want to go up?"

Her eyes widen. "Can we?"

He nods. "Someone cut the lock a long time ago and no one ever replaced it."

She raises an eyebrow. _"'Someone'_ cut the lock?" He winks at her, and she laughs.

He goes around to the heavy metal doors, which are at the top of several concrete steps, and pulls one open. "After you, Miss Harrison." He gestures, and she walks in, looking up at the spiral staircase in awe. "It's a lot of stairs," he says. "Pretty sure no one else ever goes up there."

"You come here a lot?"

He shrugs. "I used to. When I was a kid and I needed to get away, out of my house." He's worried she'll start prying at that, but she just nods, and starts up the long staircase. He follows her.

About halfway up he stops to catch his breath, and she stops a few steps above him and teases him, though she's winded too. "Need a break, old man?"

"Not at all, just enjoying the view," he says with a smirk, gesturing at her. She winks and smacks her ass playfully, making him laugh.

At the top of the stairs, once she's had a chance to catch her breath again, Jude looks around at the big glass room. "This is so cool," she says, walking up to examine the big light in the center, encased in a column of glass with its diamond-shaped prism lenses. She looks back at him "How did you find this place?"

He shrugs. "I don't remember exactly. This isn't too far from where my school was, and we could see the top of the tower from the playground. I was probably 11 or so, and one day I was wandering around, and I wanted to see if I could get in. I came up here whenever I could after that, until I left New Brunswick. I'm surprised it's still here, honestly. It's been a lot of years. Come here, let me show you the view."

The glass is too dirty to see through after so many years with no one to clean it, but the door still opens, albeit with a deafening creek. He walks out onto the widow's walk, and Jude follows him. She gasps when she looks out at the ocean, and the look of wonder on her face is worth weathering a thousand mocking retorts from Mike and Ryan.

"It's beautiful!" she exclaims, walking up to the edge of the railing and leaning over. "We're so high up!" she laughs, looking back at him. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair is blowing around her face, and her smile is wide and as dazzling as the sunlight on the water. He's never seen anything more beautiful than her in that moment. She throws her arms around his neck, saying, "Thank you!" as if he's just given her a gift.

He laughs and pulls back. "For what?"

"For… I don't know. This." She turns and gestures to the whole ocean view. She looks back, putting a hand on the side of his face. "For sharing this place with me."

He leans his forehead against hers. "Yeah, of course."

They exchange a few short kisses before Jude turns back to the ocean. He wraps his arms around her, pressing his lips to the side of her head. They stand there for a while, watching seagulls and ships in the distance. He murmurs, "I love you," in her ear and she turns around in his embrace, kissing him with a smile and saying, "I love you too."

Here, with everything else faded into the background, he can actually feel like he deserves her. With Tom Dutois a far away thought, he almost believes that this Tommy, the one Jude loves, is real.

* * *

 **A/N:** It would be difficult to overstate how very much I enjoy psychoanalyzing the character of Tom Quincy. In "My Hometown" especially there's a ton of really compelling and heart-wrenching Tommy stuff. This perception on Tommy's part of this dissonance between who he really is (meaning Tom Dutois, i.e. who he was as a kid) and who he "pretends" to be with Jude is really well done in this episode on the part of the actors and of the writers. It's arguably my favorite episode of the series, I think, in terms of the Tom/Jude plotline, even though it tears out my heart every time. This story has been in a weird nebulous form in my head for a month or so now, and I finally got it all out in one go.

If you too enjoy psychoanalyzing Tommy Q, or if you have a comment/suggestion regarding my writing, please leave a review, or send me a PM. Much love! -Kari


End file.
